There already exist sun-visors for motor vehicle passenger compartments in which the sun-visors are provided with courtesy mirrors capable of being illuminated by bulbs powered by pairs of electrical conductors which are themselves connected to feed wires hidden in the roof. These conductors may pass to one side of the sun-visor support arm, but for reasons of appearance it is preferable to hide them by causing them to pass inside the support arm. That is why the support arm of an electrically-powered sun-visor is conventionally made by molding plastic material over an insert. The insert may be a hollow tube with at least one electrical conductor wire being caused to pass along the bore thereof. The tube is generally made of metal and may act as the second conductor which is connected to ground.
Cabling such a support arm nevertheless suffers from difficulties since the support arm is angled to enable the sun-visor to pivot both about a horizontal axis and about a vertical axis.
The hollow insert must therefore be angled before plastic is molded thereover, and this may give rise to kinking or constriction at the angle in the duct. This can give rise to difficulties in passing the conductor wire(s), and even to manufacturing rejects. Support arms made in this way are expensive because of the operations required for making the inserts, for bending them, and for passing the conductor wires. To this, it is also necessary to add the costs of connectors for connecting the ends of the insert firstly to the bulb, and secondly to ground or to a feed wire.
Another prior method of making a support arm is to mold plastic material over a solid metal insert. The insert then constitutes one of the electrical feed conductors for the sun-visor. In this case, the second conductor is provided via the other sun-visor support rod which holds the end thereof that is distant from the support arm by co-operating with a notch fixed to the roof and referred to as the central hook.
This solution has the advantage of proposing a support arm which is particularly strong, however it suffers from the drawback of requiring good electrical contact to be made between said rod and said notch when the vanity mirror is to be illuminated, and the lighting provided in the sun-visor does not work unless the rod is engaged in the notch. This disposition using another support rod considerably increases cost prices.
An object of the present invention is to provide a support arm for a sun-visor which is electrically powered by two conductors passing along the inside of said support arm and which can be made in a manner which is simple and cheap. The sun-visor may be fitted with an illuminated mirror or with any other electrically operated accessory.